#hp meta

[heartoftheserpent]

ok i was curious (and on a non-insignificant amount of medication) about whether Harry refers to Voldemort or Sirius as "handsome" more often so i decided to count how many times people/things are referred to as "handsome" in all 7 books. i didn't count things that are referred to as NOT handsome or as No Longer Handsome or Once Might Have Been Handsome, just times Harry (or someone else) refers to someone as handsome. draw what conclusions you like. I did not count "beautiful" or "gorgeous" or "good-looking" just "handsome."

Sorcerer’s Stone: 0 handsomes for people (1 for a book)

Chamber of Secrets: Fawkes: 1 (by Albus), Voldemort: 1 (by Albus) Lockhart: 1

Prisoner of Azkaban: a book: 1, Hermes the owl: 1, a staircase: 1, a Christmas tree: 1, Sirius: 2

Goblet of Fire: Cedric: 4, Madame Maxime: 2, a fire: 1, Lockhart: 1

Order of the Phoenix: a statue: 2, Hermes the Owl: 1, an armchair: 1, Sirius: 2, an egg: 1, a quill: 1

Half-Blood Prince: Hermes the owl: 1 (GET IT TOGETHER HARRY), a book: 1, Firenze: 1, a house: 1, Tom Riddle Sr: 4, Tom Riddle: 6, Ron: 1 (by Slughorn), Bill: 2 (by his mom), Madame Maxime: 1

Deathly Hallows: a house: 1, a mantlepiece: 1, a room: 1, Sirius: 3, a statue: 1, Grindelwald: 2, Voldemort: 1, a wand: 1

Final count:

Ron: 1

Firenze: 1

Staircases: 1

Rooms: 1

Fawkes: 1

Fires: 1

Christmas trees: 1

Armchairs: 1

Quills: 1

Eggs: 1

Wands: 1

Mantlepieces: 1

Houses: 2

Lockhart: 2

Bill: 2

Grindelwald: 2

Statues: 3

Hermes the Owl: 3

Madame Maxime: 3

Cedric: 4

Tom Riddle, Sr: 4

Sirius: 7

Tom Riddle, Jr./Voldemort: 8

however one of the Voldemort ones is from Albus so HARRY refers to Sirius and Voldemort as "handsome" the exact same number of times thank u for coming to my ted talk

[velvet4510]

The fact that Draco Malfoy is canonically unable to cast a Patronus because he doesn’t have a happy enough memory to use for it is a MAJOR detail. He may be spoiled and doted on at home, and his mom clearly would do anything for him, but any kid with NO memories happy enough to conjure a Patronus whatsoever, is definitely not a kid with parents who are 100% warm and loving. I think this is a big reason why Lucius being full-on abusive is a common trope in fanfiction. There’s plenty of stuff in canon to contradict that - and yet Draco’s lack of Patronus isn’t exactly a point in Lucius’, or Narcissa’s, favor.

[endlessburningdarkness]

Harry is not the "good" one

By which I mean, Harry is not inherently a good person.

If you think Harry could never be as bad as Tom, never kill, never be cruel or evil then you fundamentally misunderstand his character and the story. The whole point of Harry is not that he is naturally or easily good, the point of him is that he chooses to be good. For that choice to be meaningful, it actually has to be a choice, meaning that he must then have the capacity and ability for evil as much as Tom does.

If Harry is naturally more "good" than Tom no matter what awful things Tom inflicts on him, if he is just too pure and incorruptible, then he is not really Harry. Harry is corruptible, Harry could've turned out like Tom. That's why they're so similar, that's why Harry relates to Tom. That's why he worries about turning out like him. Not because he finds Tom's choices unfathomably evil, but because he understands them.

If Harry was raised the way Tom was, he wouldn't necessarily turn out much different. If he was isolated and neglected and terrified in the same away, with no friends, no loving parents, no adults to support him, then their similarities would be impossible to ignore.

And if you want to show that Harry is choosing to be good and not just a natural born bleeding heart saint you need to make that clear, you need let him be cruel and selfish and violent sometimes, you need to show him falling before he chooses to stand up.

So much of this fandom feels the need to make Harry completely unlike himself. Going to immense lengths to make him nicer, kinder, more forgiving, more emotional, more stupid, more naive, more trusting, more and more of what he isn't in order to show that he is different from Tom. When the whole point of their connection, and Harry's eventual understanding of Tom Riddle, is their similarities, not their differences. Harry knows Tom because he knows himself, and imo, this desperation to make Harry as unlike Tom as possible is holding us back from some truly great exploration of their relationship.

Not everything needs to be opposites, just because Tom is bad doesn't mean Harry is incapable of murder or lying or torture. He shows us in canon he is capable of all that without any remorse. Two characters can have similar traits that present differently. They can both lie and be suspicious and clever at the same time. In fact, that increases the suspense and tension between them!

Honestly, I suspect this unspoken rule of opposites is heterosexual in origin. But for the record, Harry is not whatever Tom isn't, and neither is Tom simply what Harry lacks, they are complex characters with many shared traits and behaviours (deceitful, suspicious, resourceful, intelligent, stubborn).

I will grant that it is easier to write them as fundamentally unlike each other in any way, perhaps that's why it's done so much or perhaps its to give them something to fight about. But there is more than enough conflict to mine in their canon relationship, there is no need to make them polar opposites in order to give them something to argue about. Please step out of the black and white box. There is a garden full of nuance and complexity for you to explore.

[chilledcitrus]

There are many reasons why I think Draco is so interesting, but if I had to choose one that is most compelling to me, it would be his contradictory nature. He is an emotional and sensitive person, yet he is good at occlumency. He is mean-spirited and loves to antagonize people, but he is also averse to violence. He wants to seem cool and aloof, but his natural personality is expressive and reactive. There are so many layers to his character, which makes him really fun to explore.

But I also think his contradictions make him quite difficult to understand, even for those close to him. In a drarry context, I don’t think Harry would ever fully understand him either, and there would always be sides of Draco that surprise him, even after years of knowing each other. But that might be a good thing for them because Harry thrives on curiosity, and Draco being a puzzle would keep things interesting for him.

[noxlumosfic]

fandom treats lily evans and severus snape as roughly equivalent in their disadvantage: two outsiders, different choices. but at hogwarts specifically, in the years we see them, severus snape is more vulnerable than lily evans. not because her muggle-born status isn't real. but because disadvantage isn't one thing, and his stacks in ways hers doesn't.

he's poor. visibly, grindingly poor. ill-fitting secondhand clothes, a violent home in a depressed industrial town, no family connections, no money. he arrives at hogwarts with nothing but his intelligence. he gets sorted into the most class-conscious, lineage-obsessed house in the school. he is a scholarship kid among aristocrats and he cannot hide it.

lily is also not wealthy. but lily is beautiful, warm, and socially fluent. james potter's obsession with her functions as a social shield whether she wants it or not. she experiences hogwarts as difficult but navigable.

severus gets physically attacked. repeatedly. in corridors, in front of crowds, by boys who face no consequences. a girl with his exact qualities, clever, poor, socially awkward, from the wrong background, would have been condescended to, excluded, quietly undermined. she would not have been hung upside down in front of the school while people laughed.

this is a gendered dynamic. fandom ignores it completely.

[slitheringghost]

literally where in the world are people getting “sirius only cares about his friends / his chosen few and no one else”. this is fanon. there is nothing in canon to indicate this. canon sirius as an adult is nice to molly weasley and comforts her about percy despite their differences. of course, adult sirius is very different from teen sirius, but young sirius as an eleven year old moves over for lily at the sorting despite having just met her (and made fun of her!). ETA: and what madame rosmerta says about him! and given his breaking away from his family, i think he’s very open to getting to know other people to hear different perspectives, especially muggleborns. sirius cares about people a lot and that is fundamental to his character.

[fannedandflawless]

I keep wondering, what if Sirius Black hadn’t found James Potter on that first train ride to Hogwarts?

Instead, the door he slid open revealed not a boy with messy hair and an ego to match, but a quiet, guarded Severus Snape?

Just two boys, neither loved quite right, thrown into the same compartment before the world told them they were meant to be enemies.

Sirius flopped down opposite the first lone figure he saw—black hair, hollow stare, arms crossed as if daring the world to speak first. He grinned. “Hi. You look like you hate everything. I think we’ll get along.” Severus looked up, unimpressed. “You talk too much.” Sirius tilted his head. “And you look like you haven’t smiled since birth.” Smirk met sneer in silence. It wasn’t friendship, yet, but something had clicked. The corner of Sirius’ mouth twitched. “Yeah. We’ll definitely get along.”

[dcafpaperback]

"imagine if hermione granger used her powers for evil, harry wouldn't have survived a day longer. she is so badass and he trails behind her like a puppy"

funny really, because this is the same harry who killed a grown man in his first year. oh and also volunteered to plunge headfirst into a seemingly dark, bottomless pit. X

this is the same harry who mastered an extremely complex, advanced piece of magic at 13.

this is the same harry who was the only one in his class who resisted being mind controlled by a curse, not once but twice. Both the times it was cast by a far more experienced, seasoned dark wizard.

this is the same harry who taught an entire curriculum of combat magic to an entire year of students. everything hermione granger knew about duelling and defense, Order of Phoenix onwards was because of harry potter.

this is the same harry who battled a whole mob of much older criminals and was the only one who didn't face a setback or got straight up knocked out by the end.

this is the same harry who strangled a man in broad daylight, in a public place.

this is the same harry who cast two unforgivable curses by 17, one on a bank manager to break into the said bank, and one on a death eater who dared to spit on his professor. fking cruciated his arse to hell. also yes, it was him who came up with the idea of escaping the bank on dragon back, not hermione.

this is the same harry who was known to take lead in the books. he led a secret rebel group, and a bunch of people who were to be tried wrongfully at the ministry to their freedom.

this is the same harry whose mere gaze made hermione granger shiver in them boots. she even feared he might hex her at one point.

this is the same harry who fantasized about poisoning a teacher, prayed for the death of another teacher (to hermione’s horror) and was again fine with a giant squashing a group of centaurs to death.

Harry James Potter not only would survive just fine without Hermione Granger, but if he chose to go evil at any point which would've been decently justified given to his trauma, i think the latter would have a real hard time surviving him.

P.S - not bashing Hermione dw